


Not All That Complicated

by Avlaske



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - No Werewolves, But he's Derek's idiot, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Stiles is an idiot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-19
Updated: 2014-03-19
Packaged: 2018-01-16 06:59:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1336285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avlaske/pseuds/Avlaske
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles is the jock that's smart but over-thinks. Derek's the nerd with a nice body but still insecure. There's a misunderstanding and they break up. Laura just wants them both to stop being idiots.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not All That Complicated

"Stiles," Derek reaches out and makes a move to grab his arm, only to have his hands smacked aside as Stiles whipped around to glare at him. Stiles' cheeks burning bright red, crawling down the back of his neck to the tip of his ears in anger. His usual smiling lips lined up into downward curve. 

"What, Derek. What do you want? What could you oh-so-possibly want right now? Didn't you take enough from me already? Was my money, time, heart, and soul not enough for your greedy hands?!" His pupils contracted, eyes wildly darting side to side, inspecting the surrounding areas of lockers and a full hallway of students. 

Derek swallowed, his throat felt dry like sawdust. Things he wanted to say to save his relationship with Stiles. Anything he could say to save it, but nothing he could think of would come out. His hands shook by his side and he clenched them. He wished for something to come out. He wanted to scream and shout, make a noise, do something. Anything was better than just standing here and watching Stiles destroy everything. 

"Let me guess! You want to ruin my reputation?! Well, guess what? I don't have a reputation. Stupid, loser Stiles! Go on, humiliate me even more." His eyes were daring Derek, trying to goad him into saying something. Moments passed and Stiles threw his arms into the air. He spun around and laughed, making eye contact with the students around them. The hallway had gone quiet, watching the silent breakdown. 

"Hey everybody! It's Derek Hale! The amazing leader of the Writer's club! The fucking god himself decided to grace us with his presence." Stile leans forward to give him a mocking bow, bending to his waistline and sad, sorrowful eyes darting up to meet his. Derek felt the air leaving his lungs like a punch in the gut. The itching feeling of terror crawled up his back and across his shoulders, leaving goosebumps down his arms. 

"The adonis himself," Stiles crows, "who can fuck whoever he wants, whenever he wants, wherever he wants." His eyes changed back to blazing fury and hurt. 

Derek suppresses the whimper, not willing to look weak in front of the public body. "Stiles, please," he whispers, surprised when it actually came out, no matter that it was hoarse. If Stiles heard him, he pretended he didn't. 

"Aw, is this too much for you?" Stiles gives him a sarcastic smile even as his forehead wrinkles in what appears to be pain. "I-" 

"Stiles!" 

Derek wasn't sure if he was relieved that Scott was here to stop Stiles from ruining his high school life or upset that it had come to this. 

"Wha- Scott! Fine! You don't have to lead me around like a child." Scott grabbed Stiles by the elbow and led him out of the school. "Don't ever come near me again, Hale!" Stiles called out to him, maintaining eye contact even as they left the building. 

Derek stood in the hallway amidst the whispers spreading like wildfire among the student body. He didn't have the energy to raise his head and glare at them. Instead, he grabbed his bag and marched out of there, eyes on the ground. He didn't really care about what everyone else thought. His heart clenched tightly. No, what he really wanted was to go back to a week ago, where everything was still good and he still had Stiles. He didn't know what he did wrong. Did he even do anything? 

He drove home in his camaro, ignored the surprised questions at his presence when he should be in school, and marched to his room where he proceeded to strip down and crawl into bed. He hated relationships, but he loves Stiles. 

\----------------------- 

"Stiles!" 

Stiles rolled his eyes and wheeled around to face Scott who's sitting on his bed. "What do you want, Scott?" He tapped his pencil against his knee, idly shifting the chair side to side. 

"Are you okay?" 

"I don't know, Scotty-boy. Do I look okay?" He asks sarcastically, unable to hide the bite behind his words. He did feel slightly guilty when Scott turned those puppy eyes on him. "Look, buddy, I'm entitled to feel angry, okay? I can't believe that dickhead could do something like that." 

Scott and his perpetually understanding eyes twinkled at him, and he felt the urge to ruffle Scott's hair. "I don't think it's his fault, Stiles." 

Stiles grimaced. "Aren't you my best bud? You're supposed to be on my side, not his." 

"I am on your side! I just don't want you to do anything you'll regret later." 

He glared at his hands resting on his lap. "I'm not regretting anything. That jackass has everything come to him for what he did." 

"Stiles, you can't know for sure it was him!" 

"Yes, I can!" 

"You said it yourself. It was so dark you could hardly make out an outline of the bodies." 

"Yeah, well, I would recognize him anywhere. He was cheating on me, Scott. Me." Stiles snorted, twiddling his thumb. He looked up at Scott and gave him a sad smile that had his eyebrows curving inward and freckles dim. "I guess I really am a loser for thinking someone like him would want someone like me." 

Scott moved forward to pull him into a hug, tucking his arms around Stiles' shoulders. He placed his chin on Stiles' head and held him as tight as he could. "Hey, anybody would be proud to be with you. You’re the captain of the lacrosse team. You’re funny, and, okay, sometimes you can be annoying, but you really mean well. And you’re my best friend. If he can't see that, then it's his loss." 

Even as comforted as he was, he could help the stray tears and stealthily wiped them on Scott's t-shirt. "Thanks bud. It's just…" he lowered his tone, mouth mumbling against the material. "I love him, you know?" 

"I know, Stiles." 

\--------------------- 

"Derek, get your ass out of bed!" Loud knocks hit his door and he stuck his head under his pillow. 

"Go away, Laura!" 

The knocks continued, getting louder with every hit. "I heard you skipped class! What happened? Open the door! If you don't open it this minute, I'm going to call Stiles!" She hollered over the top of her lungs as she attempted to threaten him. He snorts. 

"He's not going to pick up. He doesn't care." About me, he added as an afterthought. It made him twinge, but he stayed strong. 

The knocking stopped, and he felt a momentary relief before it came back even louder. "Will you stop t-" A loud crunch reached his ears and he threw the covers off, only to gape. "Did you just break my door?" 

"Now, Derek, it's not the time to be worrying about doors." And there was her superior smirk. The one that would no doubt annoy him on a normal day. But not today, and apparently it showed on her face because her face falls to concern. "Hey, what's wrong?" 

He sighed and fell back to bed, hiding under his blankets. "We broke up," he said it with a tone that made it sound equivalent to pulling teeth. The sheets were pulled from him and he glared at her. 

He rolled away from her, turning to face the wall. "Can you leave me alone?" 

"Derek, what happened? I thought you guys were ‘in love’?" Derek imagined that Laura said that with finger quotations, by her tone of voice.

"Go away, Laura." 

He shrugged her off when she shook his shoulders. 

"Derek, I-" 

"Laura." 

"No, really, I'll ta-" 

"Please." Just leave me alone. Help me solve this. Leave him alone. Find out what's wrong. He didn’t know what he meant by it, but eventually she left him alone. He curled his arms around himself. "Stupid Stiles," he whispered. 

\------------------ 

School was awkward. He tried to make eye contact with Stiles in 3 of the 5 classes they shared only to be ignored. Any valiant attempts to approach and speak to Stiles was blocked off by his group of friends. He thought about sitting in for one of Stiles' practice, but by the look of his morning, he decided not to. He left with slumped shoulders. 

Stiles, on the other hand, was getting worse by the day. He could feel Derek's stare burning the back of his head throughout the classes they shared together. It did make him feel guilty before he shook it off. It wasn't his fault they were in this situation. He soldiered on. His friends were awesome. They helped him get through the day, even as they insulted his clothing choice, pale face and baggy eyes. It helped. 

He was kind of useless during practice, but no one called him out on it (mostly because he was the captain of the team and practically everyone on the team was his friend, except for that jackass Jackson -which, hah, fitting- but even he had his good days). 

Three weeks later and he's still not getting better. He hasn't talked to Derek in over a week and a half, but he also hadn't spoken to anyone outside his dad and his friends. He's not exactly happy, and Derek has stopped trying to contact him after the first week. 

That, of course, does not prepare him when he steps into his jeep and turned to put his backpack into the back only to come face to face with Laura fucking Hale. He let out a manly yell -he did not squeal, no matter what anyone says, thank you very much- and flipped back, body ramming the horn on his steering wheel, hands coming up in a karate stance. 

"Uh, Laura?" 

He would like to add here that he might have a tiny fear of Laura Hale. Okay, maybe not so tiny as gigantic, but anyone who wasn't scared of Laura was either very ballsy or very stupid in his opinion. 

She continued to glare at him, hands gripping the back of his chair. "Drive. Now." 

He swallowed and turned on the engine. Her long nails were starting to look pretty sharp. He changed gear as she climbed to the passenger seat next to him. "W-what are you doing here?" He cursed himself for stuttering so obviously. 

"So I heard you broke up with my brother." Stiles coughed as the glare intensified, feeling it heat the side of his head as though it was willing his brain to explode. Or implode. She probably wasn't picky. "Did you forget what I said about hurting my brother?" She threatened, voice low and hissing. She leaned closer to him. "What I would do to you?" 

He should be trembling scared and just about peed his pants, but his anger overtook him and he slammed onto the breaks. Her eyes were wide in surprise before narrowing them at him. He didn't care. "I hurt him? I hurt him?" He knew he sounded hysterical, but he didn't care at this point. Couldn't stand the pointing fingers when he was the victim. "He was the one who cheated on me!" He snarled, slamming his fist against the side rest. She didn't flinch. 

"When." 

"W-What?" Stiles was taken aback by the question, clearly not expecting it. 

"When did he cheat on you?" 

"Uh…" He thought wordlessly. "Last week, Thursday. At Lydia's party." He glared back. "Don't you dare tell me it wasn't him. I saw him!" 

Laura leaned back on the seat before snorting. She opened the door and stepped out. "It's a good thing you broke up with him then." She met his disbelieving eyes. "He deserves someone better than you." She slammed the door and started walking away. Stiles stared at her before hurriedly unbuckling his belt and left his car. 

"He was the one who cheated on me, and I'm the one who doesn't deserve him?! He might be your brother, but don't you think that's a bit too much favouritism?!" He yelled, staying stationed by his car. 

She didn't turn around nor did she stop walking. "He wasn't at the party." 

Stiles' heart stuttered to a stop. "What do you mean?" He could feel his heart racing and he tried to calm it to hear what she was trying to say. "I-I saw him!" She was walking away. "Laura!" 

She finally stopped. She sighed and looked at him, giving him a pitying look. "He wasn't at the party because he was with me. Last Thursday, you said? Our parent's anniversary? That Thursday?" She snorted. "Some boyfriend you are. Or ex-boyfriend, I guess." She shook her head and walked out on him. This time, he didn't stop her. He recalled Derek telling him that a month prior and he feels like the worst and biggest idiot in the world. Ever.

Stiles fumbled with his phone, his facial expression showed his horrification.

“Stiles?”

“I think I fucked up real bad, Scott.”

\---------------

 

“Uh, hey.”

Derek snapped his head up, surprised. Stiles approached him. That…well, that was a shock actually. But then he remembered he shouldn’t be so happy. 

“What do you want?” He looked back down at his notebook, going back to scribbling notes for his English essay.

He didn’t have to look up to know Stiles was scratching the back of his neck. “I, uh, I wanted to apologize and see if you wanted to go out to a movie later?”

His hand stilled on the paper and he swallowed, a sudden rush of anger ran through his system. He clenched the pen tighter in his grasp, before aggressively continuing to write notes, never once looked up. “You ignore me for three weeks and now you decide it would be okay to talk to me again?”

“I, well, I-”

He braved on, as though Stiles never opened his mouth. “You insulted my club, you insinuated that I fuck around, you insult me by thinking I would even want to hurt you, but most importantly, I can’t believe you think I would cheat on you.” 

He finally looked up when his rant was met with silence, and saw Stiles’ gaping look. “Yeah, Laura told me.” He said bitterly. “I’m so glad you have that much faith in me. Really, it’s touching.” His sarcasm was biting and he knew it, especially by the look of Stiles’ expression of hurt that might have clenched his heart a bit. It’s only been three weeks, but still. He sighed. “I guess we finally found the answer to what can shut you up if kissing won’t,” he joked, tone falling flat at the end when Stiles didn’t change, getting sadder by the second. 

At that moment, he decided that it probably was better this way. Stiles had a lot more going on for him than he did. Stiles was smart, witty, the captain of the lacrosse team, handsome, and kind. Derek was just a nerd in a writer’s club.

It really was just...”Better this way.” Stiles stared at him in loss and confusion and Derek replied with a morose look. “You can do a lot better than me. You’ve got a lot of things going for you. It’s better that it ends now, anyway.” Before you realize it and I’m in too deep to walk away without hurting even more, Derek thinks. He bulldozed through the last of the conversation. “And I don’t think we should stay as friends, it’ll be…” Difficult. Terrible. Heart-wrenching. “best if we part ways now.” 

Stiles opened his mouth to say something, but Derek won’t have it. He was too close to breaking down himself. Probably not into tears, but he could feel his heart splitting into two. He just wanted to get out of here. “Bye, Stiles,” he whispered, grabbing his books and left the area. He didn’t want to look at the other boy as he left, too scared and cowardly to see what Stiles was thinking. But it was over now. He just had to move on, somehow.

He ignored the boy calling after him. After today, Stiles will just be another person who came and went.

\----------

“What the fuck?”

He stared down at the bouquet of roses in his hands. He looked back at the delivery boy. 

“I think you have the wrong person.”

The delivery boy gives him a sarcastic quirked eyebrow that he does not appreciate. At all. “Are you Derek Hale?” His bored tone kind of pissed him off just the slightest bit, too.

“Yes,” He said through clenched teeth.

“Then it’s for you.” His nostrils may have flared a bit when the delivery rolled his eyes. “Just take it, will you? I got to get back to my job. Toots.”

And he might have possibly slammed the door harder than he had to. He was just about to throw the flowers into the garbage when a loud squeal reached his ears and he grimaced. It was too late to hide them now.

“Cor,” he warned, but that didn’t stop the little devil incarnate when she grabbed it from his hands, stuffed her face into it and sniffed like it was the air she needed to survive. “We raised you better than that,” he chided, to which she gives him an affronted look.

“You didn’t raise me,” Cora starts, sticking out her tongue. “Uncle Peter did. And Laura.”

Derek grimaced at the reminder. “Please don’t remind me. I can imagine how you would turn out if you were raised by someone more normal.”

“Too bad, too sad. You’re stuck with me now. Ooooh, what is this?” She cooed, fishing out a card hidden between the roses that he hadn’t even seen. He cursed his lack of observation skills. “It says ‘I’m sorry, -SS?’” She curled her eyebrows close together with pursed lips, a look of pure concentration. “Stiles Stilinski?”

And there goes the forbidden name that no one was allowed to utter, because…

“Did you say Stiles?” Laura came stomping into the room, eyes scanning left and right. Derek sighed, wanting to disappear into the ground. He grabbed a seat by the kitchen isle. He watched as Laura snatched the card from Cora’s hand, ignored her loud exclamation, and proceeded to glare at it like it would give her all the answers if she scared it enough. Eventually she departed from the room after throwing both the flowers and the card out. 

Derek looked sadly after the flowers before shook himself out of it. It was for the best, he continued telling himself. He just wasn’t sure if it was the best for Stiles, or for him.

The next few days followed in the same fashion. There would be flowers or chocolate delivered to their door (thrown away immediately if it caught Laura’s eyes) with cards of notes. Notes with terrible written poetry. He shouldn’t like them so much, but they eventually grew on him. He found himself hiding a couple of them under his bed (the ones that were free from Laura’s clutch anyways). At school he continued to ignore Stiles, even when he used his puppy eyes and pouty lips that made Derek want to keel over backwards to please him. 

Five weeks later the presents were still coming. He was looking forward to seeing the flowers everyday (which, no one knows he’s a closet romantic). Laura, however, was getting more irritated until she finally gave up and told him to make up with the boy. Her exact words being “If you don’t get back together, I will shove the next batch of flowers so far up your ass you’ll be smelling them.”

Not that he needed her permission (but it would be nice in case they did get back together, because hey, he would like to have a boyfriend who actually breathed), but the little notes were starting to wear down his guard. The ones that he was especially fond of waxed on about his chiselled jaws and toned pecs while using the old “Roses and Red, Violets are Blue”. But the ones he truly loved spoke about how much they deserved each other (well, it’s what he takes out of “I can’t be without the brain to my brawn”).  
He saw Stiles on Monday and stopped by his desk. It took a while before Stiles noticed his presence. When he did, he froze in place as though time stopped. 

He coughed awkwardly, staring at Derek, looking like a deer caught in the headlights.

Derek’s hand might have shook as he dropped a piece of paper on Stiles’ desk before moving to sit down at his seat at the front. It wasn’t until he was seated that Stiles jumped out of his seat to grab the paper. It read, “Movies later?”

Derek will remind him that he did, in fact, squeal in a very girlish way, and he had several classmates to prove it. Stiles would proceed to loudly proclaim that he did no such thing and shut Derek up by kissing him.


End file.
